Teco chillers - heating effectiveness

[Tastee]

Hi all, I have recently setup a new RSR 525 XL using a Teco TK-1000 heater/chiller. I have the chiller plumbed to draw from the inlet side of the return section of my sump and pump back into my return - soft plumbed but using a T- connector on the return inlet to ensure the return (Neptune COR-20) picks up as much of the heated/chilled water as possible. During my testing early the chilling function seemed to work quite effectively and fairly quickly dropped the water temperature by 0.4 degrees C.

We have just entered our winter in Australia and I have found that the heating function is much less effective. The unit has a 400W heater, which I know is working (Teco display showing the heater is on and I can see the current draw in the Apex), but overnight my tank was dropping well below the set point (25.6C with 0.4C hysterisis). It got as low as 24.4C one night, so I am now using my 300W backup and a spare 150W heater (Apex controlled) to ensure the tank temperature doesn’t drop below 25C. In theory the Teco should keep it at 25.2C or above, but it is not able to maintain that.

I measured the low rate through the chiller which was about 550 LPH. Yesterday I increased that a little but nothing much changed. The chiller is rated for a flow between 500-800 LPH.

Do others have any experience using these heater/chillers?
How have you found their heating ability?
How do you have them plumbed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[DeniableArc]

Hi I have a tk500 on a rsr 250 I have a syncra 0.5 700lph taking water from skimmer chamber to return. I have no problem maintaining 25.5c never drops below set point. I believe slower flow with more contact time can help.

 

[Tastee]

Hi I have a tk500 on a rsr 250 I have a syncra 0.5 700lph taking water from skimmer chamber to return. I have no problem maintaining 25.5c never drops below set point. I believe slower flow with more contact time can help.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am currently trying a little more flow, will also try a little less and see if that improves things.

 

[DeniableArc]

Thanks for the suggestion. I am currently trying a little more flow, will also try a little less and see if that improves things.

I’m in Sydney and we are getting down to 3c with very little house warming. The only thing I have done on my teco is change it to heat with a .5 degree drop instead of the factory 1 degree.

 

[magikfly]

I believe a 400W heater on a RSR525 is just not enough to keep the tank at optimal temps in the absence of insulated/heated homes

 

[DeniableArc]

I believe a 400W heater on a RSR525 is just not enough to keep the tank at optimal temps in the absence of insulated/heated homes

Could be right there I have a rsr 250 with the tk500 I thought the tk1000 had a larger heater.

 

[Tastee]

Thanks for the replies. I’m in Sydney too @DeniableArc.

The tk1000 has a 400W heater, and in my situation is certainly not keeping up. The 525XL is a much bigger system than the 250 (I have one of those also) and with the big sump probably loses more heat than I originally thought. It looks like the tk500 has the same 400W heater as the tk1000. My backups are doing the job for now so I’ll see how things go over time as the seasons change.

 

[marktiff]

Thanks for the replies. I’m in Sydney too @DeniableArc.

The tk1000 has a 400W heater, and in my situation is certainly not keeping up. The 525XL is a much bigger system than the 250 (I have one of those also) and with the big sump probably loses more heat than I originally thought. It looks like the tk500 has the same 400W heater as the tk1000. My backups are doing the job for now so I’ll see how things go over time as the seasons change.

Any updates. I just bought a TK1000 and appear to have the same problem. Chiller works well to bring temp down but heater struggling!

 

[Tastee]

Any updates. I just bought a TK1000 and appear to have the same problem. Chiller works well to bring temp down but heater struggling!

I’m having the same issue. My main heater is now an Eheim Jager 400W and during the coldest days in winter the secondary Aquael Platinum 300W kicked in as well for a short time to help it out. The Teco didn’t seem to be doing anything much useful. I have calibrated the pump and it is running at 550 litres per hour which is right in the Teco sweet spot. I have tried a little faster and a little slower and it didn’t seem to affect it much at all.

I’m going to plug it back into my EB6 so that I can monitor it’s power draw to see whether the heater is even kicking in. Assuming it is and it isn’t doing much I’ll try turning that heater off and see how the tank fares - my thinking at the moment is that I am really just wasting power using that heater and I should just stick to the two standalone heaters I have.

Chilling so far seems fine. The tests I did showed it working well in that capacity. We’re starting to come into warmer weather in Sydney now so I’ll soon see how it goes in real life.

It’s a bit of a disappointment as the dual function was part of the reason I spent more on the Teco. Still it’s role is primarily as a chiller and it does that well and is quieter than the cheaper Hailea I have on my other tank.

 

[marktiff]

Local Teco rep is chasing down a new heater element. Keep you posted.

 

[Tastee]

Local Teco rep is chasing down a new heater element. Keep you posted.

My local rep replaced my first heater element as it was drawing no power when on. Their suggestion is that it popped due to me turning the Teco on before connecting and running the chiller pump when I first set it up. That is possible, but I really think I did not turn it on until after I had the pump running. I could be wrong however. I was certainly extra careful when re-installing it after the new element was fitted to ensure that didn’t happen. Apparently this is a common mistake owners make.

As soon as I get a chance to re-test it and confirm it is drawing power I’ll let you know.

 

[Tastee]

I was able to check this out again today. My chiller is already powered by the Apex so I must have moved that over previously and forgot. When I checked today the chiller was indicating it was in heating mode however according to the Apex I only had 0.3A power draw which would have been coming from the wavemakers as the other heaters were not on. I then disabled the heater in the Teco and monitored it - power draw did not change.

I suspect that the new heater element that was installed failed some time after I reinstalled the chiller. I can absolutely guarantee that I never ran the chiller without water circulating through it this time as I was very, very careful I did not turn it on until I confirmed I had water flow. So it looks like the heater element failed on it’s own. Given this was the second element it fills me with no confidence whatsoever about the quality of these elements.

I am going to leave the heater disabled and just use the Teco as a chiller. I have perfectly adequate heating in my tank from the primary and backup unit so will leave them to do their job. As the weather warms up it will be interesting to see how the chiller performs.